Judy Aiken, a retired nurse from Portland, met with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris this month about new lower Medicare prescription costs. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

Judy Aiken’s struggle to afford a medication that cost her about $9,000 a year inspired the retired Portland nurse to become an advocate for lower drug prices.

And this month it also resulted in a White House meeting with President Biden and, a few days later, a center stage role introducing Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at a rally in Maryland to highlight the administration’s drug price reforms.

“For over four decades, I’ve battled psoriatic arthritis and psoriasis,” she told the audience at the rally. “Nothing could prepare me for the financial strain that came with the high cost of the drugs I need to live my life.”

Now the price is coming down, she said, and “it feels like a lifeline”

 

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Aiken, 70, takes Enbrel, which used to cost her about $9,000 per year even though she has Medicare insurance. But after a new federal law went into effect this year that reforms how Medicare enrollees pay for their medications, her out-of-pocket costs have plummeted. Already in 2024, what she pays out-of-pocket for Enbrel has been cut by more than half from the $9,000 she was previously paying, Aiken said. And in 2025, the Inflation Reduction Act will cap out-of-pocket costs at $2,000 a year.

Enbrel is one of the first 10 medications subject to Medicare negotiations with the drug industry, also a part of the Inflation Reduction Act. Medicare will continue to negotiate the price of additional drugs with the pharmaceutical industry, which was previously prohibited by law. Allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of drugs had been a long-term goal of those seeking to reform the nation’s health care industry, but it took decades of lobbying before Congress passed a law.

The White House highlighted the results of the law in publicity events in mid-August, including the rally in Maryland that starred Aiken.

For Aiken, it’s a big relief to be able to not worry as much about how to pay for the monthly refills.

“When you are on a fixed income, this makes a world of difference,” Aiken said in an interview last week. “You don’t dread going to the pharmacy like you used to.”

Judy Aiken, of Portland, chats with President Biden before a rally this month in Maryland to highlight lower prescription drug prices. Photo courtesy of Ian Seepersaud, Patients for Affordable Drugs

Aiken’s advocacy work with the national Patients for Affordable Drugs lobbying group led her to the one-on-one meeting with Biden at the White House. Part of their conversation was captured in a White House promotional video that’s running on social media.

“Health care shouldn’t be a privilege, it should be a right, and especially when they so overcharge for these drugs,” Biden said to Aiken during their Aug. 12 meeting. “It doesn’t surprise me it would take a nurse to come forward like you. Your advocacy has made a difference.”

On Aug. 15, Aiken introduced Biden and Harris – who by then was the presumptive Democratic nominee for president – at a rally in Prince George’s County, Maryland, to highlight the new law.

Aiken said now that her medication is more affordable, she and her husband can move forward with home improvements they were delaying, and she’s no longer under pressure to skip a dose now and then.

“When I was paying all that money, I thought, ‘Holy cow. I knew people struggle paying for their meds, but this is ridiculous,’ ” said Aiken, who lives with her husband, Paul, in Portland. They have one son and a granddaughter.

At the White House, Biden showed her the Oval Office and some of the Biden family photos.

Vice President Kamala Harris talks with Judy Aiken, of Portland, before a rally in Maryland this month. Photo courtesy of Ian Seepersaud, Patients for Affordable Drugs

“He’s so down-to-earth. It was like talking to my older brother,” Aiken said. She also briefly met Harris at the rally but didn’t have a lengthy conversation with her. “She also seemed warm and genuine,” Aiken said.

Aiken turned out to be a natural on the national stage.

“I wasn’t a bit nervous meeting the president, and I don’t know why,” Aiken said. “It was like having a conversation at my kitchen table.”

Organizers with the advocacy group Patients for Affordable Drugs asked her if she had ever met a president before.

“I said, ‘Heck no, I’m just a girl from Maine,’ ” Aiken said.